by Alex Flinn
Is that true?
“Young lady,” Dad says, “I hardly think this is any of your business.”
“No, it is not. But perhaps as an outsider, I can see more clearly. Jack does respect your opinion. He craves your approval. But he feels that the only way he can get it is to deny his true nature and do exactly as you say.”
Mom looks at me. “Is that true?”
I nod.
Talia continues. “It was my idea that Jack should tell you where his real interests lie, in gardening, in being with the earth. I said I was certain caring parents like yourselves would understand.”
“Young lady,” Dad says. “I don’t know who you are or where you’re from, but you have no idea the sort of pressures a boy like Jack will face, the competition…”
“Dad,” I say.
Talia holds out her hand. “You are right. I have no idea, and it is none of my business, and I was taught to obey my parents. But sometimes it is just impossible to obey blindly. Sometimes a child must strike out on her own. A child cannot be a child forever, whether that means not touching a spindle or…or…”
I know, of course, that she’s not just thinking about me but of herself and her own parents. I think what she’s saying is pretty profound.
Dad looks away. “I’ll tell Ed you’ll be in Monday.”
“I won’t be there.” I stand. “Come on, Talia.”
“Jack!” My mother tries to follow me.
“Sorry I ruined our family dinner,” I say.
Talia follows me out. “That did not go well.”
“It’s not your fault. It never goes well.”
She purses her lips in that cute way she does. “It certainly makes me think about my own situation.”
She means about leaving, about going home. She’s still thinking about it. I don’t want her to go. Yet I have no idea how to get her to stay. I was hoping maybe my parents would give in, let her stay a little longer, at least until the end of summer. After the mess at dinner, that’s not looking very good.
Thing is, I’m falling in love with her. But my parents wouldn’t want to hear that, either.
The next morning, Talia beats me downstairs again. When I finally make it to breakfast, Talia whispers, “It did work!” Then, louder, she adds, “Your mother has been telling me of a lovely garden nearby, where she volunteers. Will you take me to it?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I seem to have walked into the wrong room. My mother is talking to you about gardening?”
“About Fairchild, Jack,” Mom says. “You must remember. I used to take you there all the time with me when you were younger, and you loved it. But I never thought you’d have any interest in it now that you’ve grown up.”
“Jack is very interested,” Talia says. “Right, Jack?”
“Yeah. That’d be cool.”
I remember going there with Mom, and then we just stopped. I figured she didn’t want to be seen in public with me anymore, once I was a pimply-faced thirteen-year-old. Could it have been that she just didn’t think I’d want to go? Was I that much of a jerk?
Mom nods, like she’s answering yes to the last question. “I’m happy you want to go. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you taking a real interest in anything, other than partying.”
“He has some other interests of which you are unaware,” Talia says.
“Okay, enough talking about how I don’t have any interests,” I say, wanting to end the subject. “Why don’t we have breakfast, then go?”
Talia laughs. “Once again, you have slept through breakfast.”
Chapter 24:
Talia
For lunch, we eat something called a hot dog, which Jack’s mother very kindly volunteers to prepare. She must have slaved all night, for it seems like quite an elaborate blend of sausages and spices on specially made oblong bread, and there are several sauces available. I try some of each, red, green, and yellow. The yellow one is my favorite, and I marvel that Jack’s mother went to so much trouble, and also that Jack said his mother could not cook. “Might I please have one with only the mustard sauce?”
“Wow,” Jack says. “Most girls I know only eat lettuce and diet dressing. They’re afraid they’ll get fat.”
“I never get fat,” I say, “although I know the man at the modeling agency said I was. In truth, I appear to be getting thinner.” I hold out the waistband of one of the pairs of jeans Jack bought in Europe. It fit well then, but now it is much too large. I wonder privately if this is part of the fairies’ gift. Modern ideals of beauty have changed, so it may be that I have changed with them. In my day, it was considered preferable for a woman to have meat on her bones, the better to show that she could afford food and prove healthy for childbearing. In my day, the young ladies at the pool party, or Meryl’s tormenters, Jennifer and Gaby, would have been thought quite poor and sickly. Only the peasants were so skinny.
I mention none of this to Jack. Talk of hips for childbearing would only scare him. That may be why men prefer young ladies to be slimmer now. They do not wish to marry and have children at a young age anymore. Ladies the age of Jack’s mother are plumper. I also note that standards of male beauty and “hotness” have changed little.
I look at Jack. He would have been thought quite handsome in my time.
I sigh. Quite handsome.
“Hey,” Jack says. “Earth to Talia. Come in, Talia.”
I do not know what this means, so I look at Jack.
“’Sup?” he says, which is his way of asking what I am thinking. I can hardly tell him I was thinking how handsome he is or how nice it might be to bear his children, so I say the first thing that comes to mind.
“Will your mother and Meryl be accompanying us to the garden?”
“Doubtful.” Jack reaches for the red sauce. “My mother never accompanies me anywhere.” Jack’s mother says nothing but raises her eyes and looks at Jack a long time.
“Well, I know I’m not going,” Meryl says. “Who’d want to go on some boring old nature walk?”
I am rather glad at Meryl’s refusal. I like Meryl, but she would merely present an impediment to getting Jack to fall in love with me. Already, last night, she annoyed him greatly by singing a song about “Jack and Talia, sitting in a tree.” It probably did not help that we actually had been sitting in a tree that very afternoon.
“I wish you were going,” I tell Mistress O’Neill. “I imagine you have great expertise and could teach Jack and me a thing or two about gardening.” I smile at her.
“What a lovely, polite girl you are.”
“She means not like that Amber chick,” Meryl says with a mouthful of hot dog.
“Yes,” Mistress O’Neill says. “That is exactly what I meant.”
I try to blush and look downward as I was taught, but secretly I am checking Jack’s expression at the mention of Amber’s name and sitting upon thorns to see his response. To my relief, Jack does not seem too perturbed by Meryl’s comment. Indeed, he does not even tell her to shut up.
“Thank you. I was told to respect my elders, even the peasants.” Realizing my mistake, I cover my mouth. “I mean, not that you are peasants, only that you are older than I…or rather…I mean…”
“Quit while you’re ahead,” Jack whispers behind his hot dog.
“Ahead?” Meryl says. “She just called Mom an old peasant.”
“It is quite all right,” Jack’s mother says. “I won’t go with you, but I hope you have a nice time, since you will only be here a few more days.”
Oh, I have fouled things up now. His mother hates me. She walks away.
Jack is smiling at me. “Don’t worry about it.” He touches my shoulder.
I feel myself blush and look away, nearly overturning my water in the process. But I glance sideways at him, through my fingers so that he might not guess my motives.
In my time, I would have been expected to marry the man my father chose. But now, that man—any man he might have chosen—is dead.
I can choose whomever I want. Would I choose Jack, were he not my destiny?
He is handsome. I have grown accustomed to the outlandish clothes now worn by gentlemen in this time, and the hair. In my time, men’s hair was much longer, with curls flowing well past the shoulders or even wigs in the style of Louis, Dauphin of France (whose son, Louis, used to come visit our palace until he became engaged to a princess from Sardinia). It was quite elegant when compared with the shaggy styles favored by boys Jack’s age or the strange, short cuts of their elders.
And Jack is kind. True, I forced him to take me with him. But after we had made good our escape, nothing stopped him from abandoning me in Belgium or France. At the time, I assumed that no one would leave a princess, but I now realize many would. Nothing save his own kindness required Jack to bring me through those countries, to purchase clothing for me, obtain a passport, fly me across the ocean, or bring me home to meet his parents. He did it for me—much as that man gave his coat for his wife.
And yet, he is a mere boy, unready for love, perhaps, and certainly unready to marry.
No. He is handsome and kind. He is wonderful and funny and enjoyable to be with. I remember being with him, up in that tree. And there is a tingling in my shoulder where he touched me.
If only I could make him love me.
But I am beginning to realize that being a princess does not mean I will be given everything I want. No, it is up to me.
At the garden, Jack pays our admission, then asks for directions to something called a “tram tour.” We traverse a path of dirt and rock, and Jack directs my attention to various plants and flowers. This is a beautiful place, with the sort of exotic blooms I imagined seeing on travels to India or China. Blossoms of purple, yellow, fuchsia, and red fill my eyes like the raiments of bridesmaids at a fairy wedding.
“So beautiful,” I say half a dozen times, in part to express joy in what Jack loves—gardening—but also because it is indeed beautiful, like nothing I have seen before.
On the tram tour—a tram being a sort of open bus—I sit closer than strictly necessary. “I am a bit afraid,” I say, although it is a lie. “Do you mind if I sit closer to the center?”
Jack shakes his head. “I’ll hold you, if you want.”
Thrilled, I present my hand, but he does not take it. Instead, he places his arm around my shoulder. He is so close I can almost feel his heartbeat.
He turns his face toward me and looks at me. “Okay?”
“Yes!” The word is a gasp because, in that moment, with his face mere inches from mine, I think—I hope—he might kiss me. And I want him to, not merely because of the curse or my father or wanting to prove that he is my true love, but because I want, once again, to feel his lips upon mine. He moves closer.
But then, the tram slams to a stop. Jack and I are jostled apart, and at the same time, an old woman says, “None of that shameless behavior here.”
Jack and I light from the tram, putting a seemly distance between us, so as not to offend the old woman’s eyes, but Jack was going to kiss me. I know he was. Perhaps later.
And then we reach a pool with the most wondrous of flowers. My eyes widen.
“Something, isn’t it?” Jack says.
“Yes. Something.” I can still feel the sensation of Jack leaning toward me, our lips about to meet in a kiss. Jack grasps my hand.
Before me, floating in shallow water, is the most enormous flower I have ever seen. No shy young rosebud, this. The plant is taller than a child of eight and, although closed, it is wider than my shoulders and pursed like an enormous pink mouth covered in spiny whiskers each as long as my fingers.
“Magnificent!” I say.
“Victoria water lily,” Jack reads. “It says here it can get to be six feet across.”
“Oh, my.”
“Nothing like that in Euphrasia, huh?”
“No. Nothing at all.” I glance away, and when I look back, it is almost as if the thing has moved.
A man standing nearby interrupts. “You have to come in the morning, though. That’s when it’s open.”
“Really?” I keep my eyes glued upon the lily. Its petals seem to shake.
“Yes. They open in the evening and close at ten each morning.”
Jack laughs. “Then I’ll never see it, right, Talia?” He nudges me.
But I do not look at him. I gaze only upon the bud because, despite the man’s words, despite the late hour, it does, indeed, appear to be opening, nay, not merely opening. It appears to be…speaking.
“Dear Princess, the time has come,” the open bloom says. Its voice is deep, as if coming from the bottom of the pond.
“Who…what are you?” Although I know.
“Oh, Princess.” The plant’s voice changes. “You know exactly who I am.”
Malvolia!
“What do you want of me? Why do you keep…?”
“I want my spell fulfilled.”
“It was fulfilled. He loves me. I know it.”
“You know no such thing.” The flower’s voice is mocking. “I think not. I was cheated. You said yourself that he does not love you.”
“I said nothing of the sort.”
“You thought it. It is the same thing.”
“Talia?” I hear Jack’s voice, far off in the distance. I try to answer but can’t.
Now the bloom appears to have grown, rising up through the murky water.
“Talia! Say something!”
“Come, Princess.” Green leaves fill my vision.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want my due.” The flower has turned into a vine. Each spiny whisker has become a curved tentacle, reaching for me. The green leaves are no longer the green leaves of Miami but rather the trees in the Euphrasian hills. I am in Euphrasia.
“Come, Princess, come with me.”
And then everything goes black.
Chapter 25:
Jack
“Talia? Talia!”
I try to catch her as she begins to fall. Is she sick? Freaking out from the heat? Unable to stand the sight of a giant, sexual-looking water lily?
“Talia?” I nudge her, at first gently, then harder as I realize her body’s limp.
Is she dead? Did her heart just realize it was three hundred years old and stop beating? No! She can’t be dead. No!
“Talia? Say something!” My whole body is quivering, but I have to stay calm. I have to help her because she is the only one who can help me.
Now other people are crowding around, asking if she’s okay, saying they’ll call 911, shoving and pushing, grabbing and poking, until I can’t breathe.
Breathe!
I feel my heart crashing around in my chest, almost as though it isn’t tethered down.
“Anyone know CPR?” a woman says.
I shove the gathered spectators away and kneel beside Talia. What I mean to do is CPR, like I learned in my junior lifesaving course, but somehow, when I kneel beside her, when I hold her in my arms, my mouth near her mouth, the events of the past week—Talia in the castle, in the dungeon, on the airplane, at the party, at dinner, even Talia gazing at that water lily—all swim before me like a river, a waterfall, and as on that day in the castle, I grab her. I press my lips against hers.
I kiss her.
I kiss her long and hard and like both our lives depend on it, which maybe they do.
“Don’t go, Talia,” I murmur.
Go? Don’t I mean die?
I kiss her again, harder. But this time, I say, “Please, Talia, I love you.”
She stirs.
I pull away, stare at her. She stares back, eyes widening.
“Jack?”
“Are you all right?”
Her white hand flutters to her even whiter forehead, and she says, “I was flying.”
“Flying?” I’m aware of people around, a woman with a concerned face, a man who offers a water bottle, which I take, but I focus on Talia. “Where were you flying?”
“Not where.” She winces at the water I splash on her face. “Not where but when. I was flying back in time, flying in the airplane back over the ocean, to Europe, then to Euphrasia, to the tower room where I lay those three hundred years. I actually saw the three hundred years, Jack. Euphrasia was invisible to the world, but it was there. I was there. I saw the seasons change through the window. And then I saw my birthday eve, and every birthday before that, every Christmas and state occasion. And finally, I was a little girl, playing in the Euphrasian hills with Lady Brooke, and there was a cottage. Jack—a stone peasant cottage with a holly bush beside it, a cottage I always saw but never paid much attention to.” She stops to breathe, shaking. “And in the eaves of that cottage was a window, and in that window was a face, the face of the witch Malvolia. She was calling me, saying I had to come back and do it all over again. I was back. She took me to her cottage on the highest hill in Euphrasia, where I used to picnic with Lady Brooke. I was there.”
“No. You were here.”
“I was there. I could hear you saying, ‘Talia, Talia, say something,’ but I could not answer, for I was not here. I have to do it all over again.”
“Why? This makes no sense.”
“Because the spell was to be broken by the kiss of true love—I knew that. That is why it is all wrong. You do not love me, and that is why Malvolia pulls me back to her.”
“Because I don’t love you?”
Talia nods.
“But I do love you. Didn’t you hear me say that, too?”
And as I say it, I realize it is true. I love Talia, not just because she’s hot (even though she is), and not just because she’s kind and thoughtful and smart, but because she makes me be all those things when I’m around her. “I’m a better person when I’m with you. I don’t want to stop being that person. I don’t want you to go.”
“Really?”
“Will that be enough for her, for Malvolia, to make you stop having these creepy dreams?” I don’t really believe Malvolia is appearing to Talia, but I know that Talia believes it, and I want to make it better for her. “Does it matter that I love you?”
